The only reason to spend TWENTY THOUSAND DOLLARS on a personal use vehicle is because you have the money and want to spend it on that. A person with the most minimal wrenching skills (the lack of which should disqualify one from driving IMO) can get decent transportation that will last many thousands of miles without major maintenance for under $5000.

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Whoever said there's nothing more expensive than a cheap Mercedes never had a cheap Jaguar.

83 300D Turbo with manual conversion, early W126 vented front rotors and H4 headlights 401,xxx miles
08 Suzuki GSX-R600 M4 Slip-on 26,xxx miles
88 Jaguar XJS V12 94,xxx miles. Work in progress.
99 Mazda Miata 183,xxx miles.

When you say many thousands, do you mean 10k? 20K? A new car will run with just oil changes for 100k..

Not everybody wants to change their cars out every 6 months.

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Eugene

10 E63 AMG
93 300te 4matic
07 BMW X3
14 Ford F-150 Fx2

A five thousand dollar example of the Ford Panther platform should be good for at least another hundred thousand miles before the transmission goes. A five thousand dollar Honda or Toyota will be closer to used up, but will get better fuel economy in the fifty thousand or so miles it should have left in it before something both expensive and important breaks.

If you're willing to change cars every few months, the kind you can get for under $500 start making a lot of sense. However, I bought my 240D for $480 and drove it for three years before I cannibalized it to put the transmission in my 300D. In that time the most expensive job was a windshield replacement (paid someone else to do it) and the toughest was replacing a slave cylinder, which wasn't really that hard. That car's last hurrah was being driven by me from Carson City to Atlanta and back. The only hitch was stabbing a cheap Autozoo starter in it halfway through the trip.

__________________
Whoever said there's nothing more expensive than a cheap Mercedes never had a cheap Jaguar.

83 300D Turbo with manual conversion, early W126 vented front rotors and H4 headlights 401,xxx miles
08 Suzuki GSX-R600 M4 Slip-on 26,xxx miles
88 Jaguar XJS V12 94,xxx miles. Work in progress.
99 Mazda Miata 183,xxx miles.

A 5k car that will give 100 thousand reliable miles.. I will admit that some people do get lucky. I am not one of those people.

__________________
Eugene

10 E63 AMG
93 300te 4matic
07 BMW X3
14 Ford F-150 Fx2